


Red and Gold and Shining

by basketofnovas (slashmarks)



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: BDSM, Breathplay, Crossdressing, M/M, corsets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-15
Updated: 2015-02-15
Packaged: 2018-03-12 22:00:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3356816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slashmarks/pseuds/basketofnovas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Feliciano takes Gilbert out for the night. Contains inappropriate use of corsets, Feliciano being distracted by art, and crossdressing. Shameless BDSM smut without any actual sex.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Red and Gold and Shining

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tassledown](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tassledown/gifts).



> This was written for my partner, Tassledown. Happy Valentine's Day, love.

Feliciano _finally_ found the cufflinks with the Lion of St. Mark on them, the last thing he'd been searching his jewelry boxes for, and slotted them through the cuffs on his shirt. Tie on, pants on, shoes and socks on. He pulled on the jacket and checked himself over in the mirror quickly before heading to the guest room. Normally he'd take more time but he had someone else he wanted to check before they left.

 He knocked on the guest room door and then just opened it without waiting for an answer.

 "Hey, Feli!” Gilbert said, shifting on the bed. “Come here and help me with this?”

 “Sure!” He sat down on the bed behind him and started lacing up the back of the bodice. “Do you like it? I was going to ask you to pick but it turned out I had to commission someone to get an _actual_ corset in the dress, one that's adjustable and has the right kind of boning and everything and since I already had your measurements and there wasn't a lot of time it was easier this way.”

“Sure, it's fine. I like it.”

 “Good.” Left to pick clothing himself Gilbert usually went with black and white – his old heraldry colors. But the truth was that he looked terrible in them. They washed out his skin and hair. The dress Feli had made for him was a metallic gold that looked a _lot_ better on him. Yellow was his third color, anyway, although that wasn't quite the same.

Feliciano finished putting the laces together and started tugging. “I'm going to do it loosely until we get there,” he said absently, watching Gilbert shift with the new discomfort and feeling a prickle of arousal. “There! You can tie it now!” It was a little awkward for Gilbert to have to tie the corset behind his back but Feliciano couldn't tie knots at all. If he tried they'd be here for  _hours_ and then they'd be actually late, instead of acceptably late which was pretty much inevitable since he'd been searching his room for at least an hour.

Still, once Gilbert had tied the corset Feliciano put the necklace he'd been carrying around his throat and fastened it, unable to resist leaning forward to kiss the nape of his neck. Gilbert shuddered – probably that was anticipation more than anything else, which was good, because this was going to be a fun night – and then Feli handed the rings over for him to get himself.

The last thing was the wig. It wasn't real human hair because Gilbert had wanted at least one in his real hair color and basically no one had undamaged white blond hair to sell to a wig maker but it was very good synthetic, and Feliciano was pretty sure no one would notice it was a wig. It was already styled from earlier so Gilbert just had to put it on and stick the stray hairs back in.

Then he turned to grin at Feliciano. “So how awesome do I look?” He struck a pose.

Feliciano laughed, but looked him over critically. The dress had mostly straight lines, with a slit coming up to above the knees because Gilbert wouldn't wear something he couldn't move in easily. The rubies in the necklace were eye catching. The rings were mostly beaten gold, a little bit darker than the dress but they matched the necklace's metal.

“You look really really good,” he said finally, kissing Gilbert's cheeks.

“Yeah, I do! And I'm in your colors, too.” Gilbert raised one eyebrow like he was maybe arguing, or at least thinking about it.

“Venice's flag has good colors,” he said cheerfully and turned to exit the room. “Come on we're going to be late and I know I always am but there's late and then there's _late._ ”

Some of the trip had to be taken over the water because of where Feliciano's house was, but that was okay because the water liked Feliciano. Once they got to the car waiting for them, though, they could relax.

“Are you going to tighten the laces for me?” Gilbert asked, fluttering his eyelashes.

Feliciano laughed again, patting his cheek. “Sure! Just turn around!” He pulled the laces tight, tight enough to make Gilbert shiver, and then leaned forward to whisper in his ear. “Do you remember the safeword, caro mio?”

Gilbert nodded, swallowing. Feli glanced down at him; his chest was moving fast, and his shoulders shifted with every breath. Just excitement or the corset? It made a pretty picture. The fluttering in his throat made Feliciano want to reach out and squeeze, but he restrained himself.

“Can you still breathe okay?” he asked, trailing his fingers down the soft skin behind Gilbert's ear.

Gilbert took a couple breaths. “Yeah, I think so.”

"Kay, better pull it tighter, then!” he said, putting action to the words.

The corset was retied shortly, and Gilbert's breaths came faster. Feliciano pulled him against his own chest and stroked his hair contentedly, but had to ask “Is this too tight? We don't want you to pass out or anything then we wouldn't be able to dance.”

“Ke!” Gilbert laughed. “This is nothing, remember when we used to wear these all the time?”

“I remember how much you liked wearing frock coats,” Feliciano said cheerfully.

“Yeah, well, I wore the corsets tighter than this all the time.”

That was probably not actually true. Feliciano was pretty sure Gilbert wouldn't have laced tightly enough that he couldn't get into a duel and win because of reduced lung capacity. But the bravado was kind of adorable so Feliciano pressed a kiss to his temple instead of arguing and then the car was there and it was time to get out.

It would take a little while for Gilbert to really feel the effects of shallow breathing. In the meantime, Feliciano kept an eye on him, and drifted to say hello to people at the art gala. Some of them knew him. He let himself be drawn into a conversation with one of his citizens, an art collector who wasn't sure about the works by one of the artists on display.

“Yes, yes,” he was saying to the woman, “What you say about the subjects is true, but the use of color! Look at this,” he half spun to gesture to the painting on the wall.

“I'm looking, I'm looking,” she said with a laugh. “So you think this one is going to last? Your instincts are always the best on these things, I don't understand how you do it.”

Feliciano grinned at the compliment. It _was_ true, although he wasn't always right he nearly always was. “I wouldn't say I'm sure yet, but--”

Gilbert's hand tightened on his arm and Feliciano felt him dip a little. He broke off, turning to his date. “Gisella? Are you alright?”

“Fine,” Gilbert said and smiled at him, then, when Feliciano leaned in to stroke strands of the wig back behind his ear, murmured, “Just – starting to get dizzy is all.”

“Okay!” Feliciano beamed at him, appreciating the tighter grip on his arm, and turned back to the art collector, fishing in his sense of his people for her name. “Clara, bella, excuse us?”

“Of course,” she said, laughing.

He steered Gilbert away through the crowd shortly, enjoying the way he was starting to cling to Feliciano's arm for balance help. It was a little awkward since he was a little taller and a lot heavier but they'd done this before and anyway, Gilbert could _mostly_ keep himself upright by himself.

Which was a little disappointing, honestly, so Feliciano turned them again to find the dance floor. (Gilbert almost never dressed female except when he wanted to dance, so he'd made sure they were going to something with some even if that wasn't really the _point_ of today. Feliciano wasn't exactly sure why except that he liked getting the attention and he liked actually being able to dance with Austria in public.)

Most people now didn't dance much, at least not this kind. Feliciano and Gilbert had both been stuck dealing with diplomacy for centuries and for a long time you had to know how to do ballroom dance for diplomacy. They could both do it in their sleep, anyway, although that was a bad idea since you wouldn't be able to avoid running into other dancers.

Gilbert might not be up to avoiding that now anyway. Feliciano moved a little closer to him, sliding an arm around to support him better, and was rewarded by Gilbert putting more of his weight onto him.

“Are you feeling okay cara mia?” he asked, moving closer again so he could wrap his arm more of the way around Gilbert.

Gilbert had looked like he was drifting, or maybe just concentrating really hard on where his feet were, but he focused on Feliciano now, smiling brightly. There was an odd soft quality to his face, something that Gilbert never had at work. Feliciano felt a hot glow of pleasure in his chest, a mix of arousal and pleasure at the fact that Gilbert trusted him that much, that he'd go down and stop thinking in public with people all around them and not even his own citizens.

“Of course I'm good,” he said cheerfully. His smile brightened a little and turned to something that a lot of people called evil when he was on the battlefield but here it was probably better to say mischievous or something like that. “We're going too slow, though.” He tugged on Feliciano's arms.

“Too slow, bella?” Feliciano grinned and took a step back again so that he could spin Gilbert at the next point it made sense in the music. He watched Gilbert wobble _almost_ imperceptibly on his feet, appreciating the curve of the skirt flowing and the way the laces of the corset's back flowed with it, then caught him again and lent him support, speeding up their steps. “Did you want me to show you off?”

“Please?” Gilbert followed his lead.

They danced for a long time, longer than some of the humans were up to, but eventually Feliciano had to slow down because Gilbert was starting to sway entirely perceptibly and then slow again and then the next time he stopped Gilbert against his chest and started leading him off the floor, back to the art displays.

“I could have kept going,” Gilbert said, sulking lightly. Of course he wouldn't have minded falling on his face, he _liked_ fighting with his body and almost losing for some reason, but it was Feliciano's job to take care of him tonight and he didn't want Gilbert to fall.

He said as much, patting Gilbert's back and leaning in to kiss his cheek, and enjoyed the pouting look that crossed Gilbert's face briefly before he got his resolve back.

“So what are we doing now, Felichen?” Gilbert asked, leaning into him. Feliciano saw his eyelids flutter briefly and smiled happily, running his hand down the side of the corset before settling his arm around him.

“Well, there's still most of the art!” he said cheerfully. “I mean we were looking at some earlier but then I was talking to Clara and I haven't seen _any_ of it, really.” As he spoke, he began glancing over the pictures, analyzing the way they were hung absently. It was really a mediocre set up, nothing interesting about it but at least it didn't stand out as actively bad. Still, he'd have rearranged those ones.

Gilbert hung on his arm quietly for about ten minutes. Feliciano was lost in color schemes and materials and, less happily, identifying perspective mistakes (and those were _definitely_ mistakes, not experimentation, if fairly subtle ones). Feliciano was nearly always willing to follow and fall in love with a new art movement – his people were wonderful and so was what they created – but he was still a discerning art critic with a couple millenia of material to compare anything new to. Most of the artists on display were not up to his standards.

He was debating whether the second to last artist had any serious merit as a photographer when Gilbert tugged on his arm, clearly a request for attention rather than another attempt to adjust his balance or a shift in weight.

“Yes?” he said, turning towards him again. “I'm sorry was I distracted?” he asked, looking over Gilbert. Shift one step to the left and his date was framed evenly by the paintings – he made an effort to memorize the way that the light reflected off of the dress, the starkness of the wall against the lace and satin, and the look on Gilbert's face, somewhere between challenging and sweet.

“I'm bored,” Gilbert confirmed. “You should entertain me.”

“You're being rude, maybe I should beat you when we get home, hm, cara mia?”

“Maybe,” he said. “But I'm still bored _now_.”

“Fine,” Feliciano retorted, laughing and fixing the pose in his mind – Gilbert's hand on his hip, chin up as it almost _always_ was, strands of the wig's hair escaping from his bun and falling down his shoulder. Then he took up his arm again and started back to the art. “I've met this one actually!” he said. “Did I ever tell you about it, he was drunk on a gondola at three o'clock in the morning – I mean he wasn't _driving_ the gondola that would be terrible, he was just on it.”

“Then how'd you meet him?” Gilbert asked, pliant under his arm again now that he had attention.

“Well, he decided to take a swim,” Feliciano said absently. That was a clever trick of angles and lighting. He stepped closer to examine it while he spoke. “Or maybe he just was leaning over and fell, I don't know. Anyway he was right in front of my house when it happened so of course I had to go and fish him out, what kind of a Nation would I be if I just let one of my citizens drown...”

They finished circling the art and Feliciano made another pass through his acquaintances, periodically checking on Gilbert. More or less as he'd expected after a while Gilbert was no longer dizzy so much as starting to be semi conscious, and when he was afraid it was going to be obviously noticeable he made excuses for both of them and started back to the car.

He loosened the laces in the car again, enough that Gilbert could breathe again, and didn't try to retie them himself, instead leaving them free. The part of the trip via boat was a little complicated but Gilbert had woken up enough to take orders by then so it was okay, and then they were back in Feliciano's townhouse.

“How are you feeling, bello?” he asked, leading Gilbert up the stairs to the bedrooms, an arm wrapped around his waist.

“Good.” Gilbert said. His voice was kind of breathy which wasn't really a surprise under the circumstances. “Are you--” he coughed “Still going to beat me?”

Feliciano led him into the guest room and got them both sitting down to check him over before he thought about his answer. It was true that would be fun, but Gilbert was looking half awake and completely down and they hadn't talked about that happening _specifically_ today, so he shook his head and raised a hand to stroke Gilbert's neck and watch him shiver. “Not today! Maybe another day soon though.”

“Not still angry I was rude?” Gilbert smirked some. The lighting in the room flashed off of the rubies in the necklace and made his eyes look more red – then again some of that was probably that the guest room was partially painted red too. It was the sort of look that Gilbert was used to being intimidating but his eyes were soft and wide, with dilated pupils, and instead of holding it he turned his face to nuzzle against Feliciano's side.

“No, no, of course I'm not angry.”

“Are we done?” Gilbert asked, tone edging into forlorn. Feliciano looked at him, folded over on the bed and half in Feliciano's lap, the skirts draped across both of them, and felt his breath hitch.

Gilbert tilted his face up, hearing the sound, and gave him a pleading look that made Feliciano groan softly. “Alright, alright! You still need to get undressed, how about you get up?” he said, putting his hands on Gilbert's hips to help him back to his feet.

He swayed a little, which was probably just that he was tired since he'd had long enough to recover now but that gave Feliciano a nice thought, so once Gilbert was standing again he led him over to the wall and had him brace his arms on it. Then he started tightening the laces again, tighter than they had been before, until Gilbert's breath was coming in shallow gasps and pants and he had sank into the wall again. When they were as tight as he wanted them he wrapped them around his waist and tucked them into the corset so they'd hold without a knot.

“You're so beautiful,” Feliciano whispered almost without thinking, watching Gilbert drop his face and gasp, clinging to the wall for balance.

“Mm,” he said. “Feli?”

“You're okay. Shh.” Feliciano ran a hand down the nape of his neck and squeezed his shoulder.

Then he dropped to his knees and shifted the skirts so he could reach Gilbert's shoes. they weren't heels, because Gilbert was only a couple inches taller than Feliciano without them but with them it would look a little bit off. Also his balance had been bad enough on flats and it would be a lot less fun if he ended up breaking an ankle or something.

He lifted Gilbert's left foot and eased the shoe off, running his fingers down the sole and watching his body shudder.

“Hey!” Gilbert protested in a cracking whisper. “That tickles, fuck it.”

“I know.” Feliciano hummed a little, removing the other shoe and then stroking his hand down the inside of Gilbert's calf, then circling his ankle lightly. His bones stuck out a little from his skin. Gilbert had always been skinny, literally _always_ because he hadn't had all that much to eat as a kid, or his people hadn't Feliciano didn't know for sure, and so he looked kind of unfinished without clothes on, hollow places where you expected body fat to be. That was considered more attractive now than it used to be though. Feliciano kissed the inside of his right knee, let go of the skirts and got up.

He took off the wig next, taking down the combs from it and setting it back on the stand, then walked back over to press a kiss to his back above the corset bodice. Gilbert was trembling with effort, eyes half closed, and he stiffened slightly at the touch.

“Hey, hey, caro mio,” Feliciano said, “Are you okay? Do you need me to change anything, or we could just stop now that would be fine.”

“No,” Gilbert said indistinctly. “I mean no, don't stop. 'S good.” He turned his head slightly and smiled.

Feliciano groaned a little involuntarily. “You're so good to me,” he said, and moved back to the dress.

He'd gotten it commissioned, which meant he could ask for some adjustments and since Gilbert liked corsets and wore them more often than ballgowns he'd made sure the two pieces were detachable. Now he felt inside the corset and located the eye hooks keeping them together, then started removing the skirt of the dress. It came off quickly. He took off Gil's underwear next and tossed it on the floor, but hung the skirts over a chair – tossing around everyday clothing was one thing, but the fabric of the skirt was kind of delicate. Finally, he came back to Gilbert, who was standing naked except for the corset and jewelry.

“You look nice in red and gold,” he said, cupping Gilbert's hips in his hands and nuzzling his back. “You should wear it more often.”

“Uh huh,” Gilbert said. “You put me in your colors because it makes you feel like you own me, Felichen, I _know_ you.”

“Well, there's that too of course! Or did you not want me to own you because I'm pretty sure that's what this was about in the first place, Gil.” Feliciano lipped at the lobe of his ear, then bit down and got a satisfying startled hiss.

He unfastened the necklace and moved Gilbert's hands off the wall in turns to take the rings off, and deposited it all on the dresser. Then, Feliciano stood back to look at Gilbert, naked except for the corset and the smile that kept tugging at his lips in between gasps for more air.

“Beautiful,” he said again, and turned away deliberately to undress himself.

Gilbert started cursing at him to hurry up very soon, and he slowed, humming cheerfully. Eventually, though, he was down to his boxers and shirt and he could go back and move them both to the guest room bed.

“You're so pretty like this,” he said, running his hands through Gilbert's short hair and down his throat. “I really kind of wish I could throttle you – you're squirming and trying to breathe and it would be so nice to see you crying when you couldn't breathe at all – but I guess I probably shouldn't leave bruises there when we have meetings tomorrow, should I?”

“You could,” Gilbert mumbled. “I wouldn't mind.”

“We'll talk about it later, bello, okay? When you're up.” He sighed, and reluctantly shifted Gilbert to start taking off the corset. “You want to stay the night still right? I could take you home if you wanted, too.”

Gilbert nodded shallowly, eyes closed. When the laces were finally loose, he took a deep, shuddering breath, and then he _did_ start to cry.

Feliciano didn't say anything, just ran his knuckles over the tears lightly and moved him again to unfasten the hooks at the front of the corset and finally remove it. “How aryou doing? Do you need anything?” he asked, once he'd pulled the blankets up to cover them both.

Gilbert reached out for his hand and clung to it. “Stay with me?” he asked, eyes wide and face soft and shining with affection.

“I promise.” Feliciano kissed his forehead again. “Always.”

**Author's Note:**

> Gisella and Gilbert are derived partially from the same root, gisil (pledge). (Gilbert was originally a compound of gisil and beraht, bright.)
> 
> Feliciano switches the gender of the pet names (eg caro vs. cara) he's using for Gilbert when they're in public since Gilbert's presenting female. I don't speak Italian, and apologize for any mistakes.
> 
> Frock coats were often worn with corsets.
> 
> You can see the red and gold flag of the Most Serene Republic of Venice [here](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flag_of_Most_Serene_Republic_of_Venice.svg#mediaviewer/File:Flag_of_Most_Serene_Republic_of_Venice.svg).


End file.
